When you move into your first marketing job you are going to find two scenarios most likely. You will be either asked to do everything in a small company or one very focused responsibility.
As a new marketing graduate you are not going to start your career as CMO of Coke or some major corporation, but you may find yourself in a very niche role for a company that sizes marketing machine doing something like brand researcher on the fruit juice for kids market. You may also find yourself doing all the marketing duties for a small company that just needs someone who can do everything.
You may be asking what this all has to do with your marketing internship.
Your marketing internship is a great time to develop a set of skills that will allow you to not only get, but excel in those situations. It is also a great time to determine what you want your marketing career to look like.
If you are interested in managing an entire marketing department or division someday then you may want to consider taking a job that allows you to play a bigger role in the marketing of a small company even if it means you have to do some not so glamorous duties like putting together a press kit, or designing a brochure. The key to this career path is to use it as a time to work on your time management and marketing strategy skills as well and not get to bogged down in the day to day duties. During your internship if you know this is the career path you want to take, take every opportunity you can to learn a new skill. A successful marketing department encompasses several functions and the more of them you are able to fill the better off you are going to be in your career. Some areas where you should look to gain some essential skills that can get you a jack-of-all trades marketing job are:
HTML
Desktop Publishing
Graphic Design
Search Engine Optimization
Copywriting
Public Relations
And don’t worry if you are not that creative, the more of these things you can do the more valuable you will be to a small company that is looking for some0ne to help build a marketing department for them.
Now, if you are interested in a more specialized marketing career path your marketing internship is an excellent time to hone those skills and/or explore which areas of specialization interest you. Some areas that you will find offer very interesting and long-term marketing career growth in if you decide to specialize in them are:
Email Marketing
Branding
Customer Experience
User Experience
Market Research
Direct Marketing
Search Engine Marketing
Public Relations
Social Media
There are so many other areas too, just remember to get your feet wet in as many areas as you can to see which one is going to be the best for your personality and interests.
Your marketing internship truly can be a springboard to your career’s success; as long as you approach it with a plan to make the most of it.
